08/01/2021
Still Mourning for Him
Death is necessary end for all living beings. Animals and humans are known to mourn for their loss. Even though humans accept that death as part of life, yet they still mourn the most, when someone with great personality passes away as they reflect the influence of that person had in their lives. If the deceased was not poplar, his immediate family were left to keep him or her in their memory while they alive, where the important people of every nation die, others have the responsibility to write about the life and achievement of that great person. Everywhere, people would hear about him/her in the media. Their story is on TV, over the radio or Social media outlets. My dear friend was on that ilk...The Somali nation have lost this week a person of great quality, who had been working in the media over forty years.
Ahmed Abdinur was a simple man with big heart. He was a household name with a distinctive commanding voice. Every Somali must have heard his passing. Many people felt they lost a family member, because of his popularity in teaching, sports and, off course in the media. He was a private man who accepted life as it came with inquisitive eyes. He was someone who could paint imaginary pictures in your mind with words.
Descriptions of everything was easy for him. He knew the Somali language, culture and the people of all Somali regions in the country as if he had lived among them for years. He knew everything about them inside out... their food, custom and dialect. He was fascinated in their poems, dances and their style of traditional dresses.
It is pertinent to mention that he admired the simple life of Somali nomads and the poor. He would say that the poor were the most hard working group in the society, and any little money that were given to them was well deserved and would be put in good use. That was why he used to work good programmes to raise awareness of their plight... Gurmad was one of the most important programmes ever broadcast. A large number of people benefited it one way or the other.
It is fair to say that Ahmed had known in person all Somali politicians, businessmen, artists, security officials, religious leaders and traditional leaders by name. He had met them all in the course of his duty... but his heart laid with the poor and there causes. It was easy for him to switch the poor stories to world of sports. The Somali youth had learned the most important fixtures of football from his programmes. He was a good football commentator. He knew the history of all great footballers by heart. Some of them had names which were difficult to pronounce for a Somali speaker. He would ring the pronunciation service in order to get that name right...
That was part of his working life, Ahmed was a family man too. He was married to another journalist and had son with her. They lived in Somalia the hardest times of the civil war. Living in Mogadishu in nineties was like living in hell according to him. The government institutions fell apart after 1992 and little money he had saved he opened up a little shop in Bakaro Market so that he might support his family. He said that that was the most difficult time in his life. Business was not his field. The most of people did not have income at that time, except those lucky ones who had been receiving remittance from abroad. The market competition was tough and merciless. A kind person like him could not have worked in that sort of environment. He said that that he had hated that job and wanted to go back to journalism. He came back to his old job, when he had lost his shop in arson attack in Bakaro Market.
Working as journalist again in warlord era was not rosy, or anything comparable to his office in radio Mogadishu where he had worked in different capacity from a journalist to a senior manager. He had to dodge flying bullets whenever he had ventured out for work. His worst nightmare had come to reality. He was travelling in a public bus when rounds of machine guns rang. The passengers had been killed or injured, in an instant, Ahmed had not felt anything. He thought that he had been alright ‘Alhamdulillah’.
Then immediately, he started helping others to be taken to hospital. There were few men working with him. One man said to him that he should get into vehicle as Ahmed had been injured in the chest. The bullet missed his heart within a whisk. Ahmed never told anyone that he had come too close to death. After that incident, he was pious man who was in service for others, from there on, he had never complained or uttered a bad word or swared.
In retrospect, he was the most patient and effective man that I have ever known. Probably, Ahmed had almost died and transformed his life to better human being and had been preparing himself for the unknown, or his eventual death, because no human being could be that careful... His memory lives on in the minds of his families, colleagues, friends and the Somali nation forever. Ahmed spoke to me a month ago. In truth, have never thought that I would be writing this eulogy. What a great friend! R.I.P. May Allah bless his soul. Amen.The end.
By Mohamed Mohamud Adde.
The author is an academic and an Independent Somali Political Analyst who is based in Mogadishu. Mahamed Mohamud Cadde
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